5.4
5Job:01212 Title: Basics typography (AVA)
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Typography and the process of reading: 5.4 The prospective interpretation of text contents
5.3 Saccadic eye movements 5.5 Time consciousnessThe prospective interpretation of text contents
As mentioned previously, reading goes well beyond the
cognitive processing dimension. Whether or not a reader
understands what is written depends on the context as
well as on their interpretative capability. Memorisation of
the text content much depends on the degree to which
the reader enjoys the reading process.The reader-response theory
In order to examine both the interpretation of text as
well as the joy that accompanies it, Wolfgang Iser
developed the so-called ‘reader-response theory’. This
theory bears some similarities to the principle of saccadic
perception but it goes beyond the structure of individual
sentences, as it extends the idea of hypothesis testing
beyond the cognitive phase to the interpretative capacity
of the reader. Iser asserts that each sentence contains
hints of the following one, calling those hints ‘semantic
pointers’. These semantic pointers provoke the reader to
make assumptions about what is going to be said in the
sentences to come. As the reader’s expectations depend
on his or her personal knowledge and experience,
every reader interprets a sentence slightly differently.
Reading is therefore not a passive, one-way process.
It also depends on the reader, who must use his or her
imagination to reconstruct meaning. Interestingly, Iser
believes the joy of reading to be rooted precisely in this
productive, proactive, contribution by the reader.The wandering viewpoint
Where the reader takes on an active role in the
determination of the signifi cance of a message, and
be it just to some degree, it is no longer the text that
dominates the reader’s thoughts. The reader’s thoughts
in return modify the meaning of the text. Reading is
subjective because meaning depends on the reader’s
individual expectations, interests and understanding.
Of course the author can tailor his or her writing towardsWolfgang IserWolfgang Iser (1926–2007)
was a German literary scholar
and professor of English and
comparative literature at the
University of Constance. He
co-founded the Constance
School of Reception Aesthetics,
which dates back to the late
1960s. In his book The Act of
Reading (1978), Iser shifts his
emphasis from the traditional
emphasis on the production of
texts to the process of reading
in order to analyse the reader’s
contact with text and the author.Job:01212 Title: Basics typography (AVA)
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